


Ever After

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [421]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-09-17 14:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9328553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: thebaconsandwichofregret forgot who they were talking to an requested: Scott teaching one of his brothers how to shoot.





	1. Chapter 1

Scott was equal parts proud and scared at how easily Alan learned to shoot.  “It might just save his life,” John pointed out with the fatalistic acceptance that he now carried constantly.  “Be grateful he can hit what he aims at.  Besides,” John had added, stripping wires with his teeth.  “We can’t waste ammo missing all the time.”

Scott had stood there, mouth open, as John finished hotwiring the car.

Fuel was getting scarce; most of the survivors had figured out how to siphon a tank, and they weren’t the only ones on the move.  Most of the tide of humanity they had encountered was moving north, heading for the nearest border.

John and Virgil had argued for south.  “We have no idea whether or not Canada is the same as us, if not worse,” they had pointed out.  “And we don’t want to be there for winter if it is.”

And so they headed south, picking up rides where they could, walking when the gas ran out.

The first time Scott ransacked a store, he felt disgusted with himself.  Now he felt nothing much at all.

Gordon tried to make a game out of it, and his brothers ignored the tight lines around his eyes as he crowed about whatever meagre finds they had made.  “Three tins of beans and a chocolate bar,” he announced as they stepped out the back door into the grey half-life that was as bright as it got now.  “We eat like kings tonight.”

“Afterwards,” Scott added, tightening the straps of his backpack again.  “Another shooting lesson.”

Gordon scowled but said nothing; they’d found a box of bullets three towns back, hidden behind the register of a corner store.  Scott now wished they’d found the gun too.  All they had was his service weapon; those they passed heading north had heard rumours of gangs, and if they were ambushed, a single gun would just get them killed faster.

“Scott,” Alan called out, waving him up the alley to the corner where it rejoined the street.  “John and Kayo have found a sporting goods store, and Virgil’s taken Penny to the doctor’s office to see if they have anything to help her arm.”

Scott nodded, waving his two younger brothers down into a crouch in the shelter of the building.  Penny worried him; she was still in shock from losing Parker in the crash, and her broken arm wasn’t setting right.

Penny knew how to shoot, Scott knew. She’d joined the hunt with her father when she was a little girl, but right now she couldn’t do much with her arm all bent and strange.

A long whistle, a low note followed by three light trills, echoed across the street – the sign.  Taking a deep breath, Scott led the other two at a fast trot across the street, hugging the shadows as they rounded the corner.  Kayo was at the door, and she hustled them in.

John never smiled anymore, but his eyes were bright in the gloom.  “Hit the motherlode,” he said, sounding satisfied.  On the counter were half a dozen hunting rifles, bowie knives, even a bow and a quiver stuffed full of arrows. “The MRE racks are pretty bare, but no-one seemed to have thought to look for a gun safe.” 

Virgil was already poking at the camp first aid kit he had unrolled on the floor.  On a foldout chair next to him, Penny sat, eyes closed, clutching the fresh bandage around her wrist.  Pain was making her more transparent every day.

Scott let Gordon go to her; that was another problem he’d soon have to face.  But for now, he let his fingers drift over the cold steel, mentally matching weapon performance with brotherly skill.

John was already checking the arrows; he’d shot archery for fun in college, and he flinched at gunfire anyway.  Alan was quick, he’d suit a smaller weapon, whereas Virgil could still handle something heavier.  He made his decision.  “Let’s barricade in here, rest up for a day or two,” he said.  There was a sign on the wall, pointing the way to the test range.  He nodded, the plan crystallizing in his head.  He hoped he’d never need it.

But the worst had already come to pass, and it was up to him to keep them all together.  

This time, he’d be ready.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all John can hear is tickticktick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for violence and OC/minor character death

John had been accused of being a machine before, but it took the end of the world for him to feel like one.

Every day was the same – wake early with the smell of ash in his nose.  Walk until aching feet were screaming.  Ignore the tightening, stabbing sensation of hunger in his belly.  Keep watch as his brothers, one by one, fell asleep.

The days passed in a _tick tick tick_ , until John forgot what life was like before it all ended.

He watched the others in their little gang closely, measuring their strengths and assessing their weaknesses.  Gordon’s good cheer was growing tight and thin, like glass held together by the cracks, but it was bolstered by the colour in Penny’s cheeks.  Penny’s arm was finally improving, after they came across that small-town doctor, and Scott had bartered a medkit for him to rebreak and properly set the bone with the last scraps of his practice’s supplies.

The doctor was going to head north; he’d heard tales of anarchy coming from the south.  He and Scott had talked for an hour, heads bowed in conference as the cast set and dried.

Scott was worrying about it, John knew. But John didn’t allow himself the luxury of doubt anymore.  They were committed to the southern border, and that was that.

Alan’s determination was like a rock, but Virgil worried John. He wore a brave face, but John heard him whimper in his dreams.  He’d mentioned his concerns about Virgil with Scott, found them shared, but there was little they could do but watch and wait.

And so they walked on.

His fingers were calloused now, from the draw of the bow and the fletchings on the arrows.  Unlike bullets, they could make arrows, crude but usable, out of any wood or even twigs picked up off the ground as the trees died one by one.  He was getting good at twining any kind of feather or vane against any dowel straight enough to shoot, and John was becoming attuned to the twitch of rabbits and any other small game that might lurk in the encroaching grasses by the roadway.  This was his contribution.

The others accepted that he needed to hunt alone; any noise and their dinner would scatter.  If his hunting took him ahead of their slowly moving group every time, only Kayo seemed to notice.  Her eyes narrowed again as John shouldered his quiver and his pack, but she said nothing as she watched him lope out of camp early enough that Alan and Penny were still sleeping.

Their trek south was taking them along the shore boundary of some national park, and John wished, not for the first time, for access to google.  If he could just find out how to preserve game, they could maybe take some with them, sd jerky or smoked joints, as they continued south.

But for now, he stalked, arrow nocked and ready, between the scattered stands of trees, all senses alert for the hunt. The stores in the towns they were passing were all looted and empty; if he came back without anything, they would all go hungry today.  He moved slowly, acutely aware of the sound of his footfalls on the dead brush and leaves.

It took a long second for his brain to process the sound he could just hear as voices.

Ducking low, John crept closer, straining his ears to make out the words.

“…yeah, they didn’t see us,” one voice was saying, gruff and amused.  “Looks like they’ve got guns, but they’re just kids.  Betcha they think this is all just a video game.”

The quip earned a dry laugh from someone young enough that their voice was still breaking.  “Plus a couple of girls.  One had a cast on her arm.”  The voice was salacious, suggestive, almost sniggering.

John’s blood turned to ice, despite the warmth of the day.  

The first voice was speaking again.  “Looks like they’re headed down the road this way.  We could set up an ambush by the diner, clean ‘em out, leave the bodies for the crows?”

A third voice, a woman, spoke.  “Okay.  Jimmy, you go tell the others to meet us by the diner.  Joe, you and me will ride down to the storeroom, get the gear.  Okay?”

“Got it, bosslady,” the younger voice said, all jest and easy humour.  “See you at the diner, uncle Jim.”

John didn’t even register his motions as an intention.  He adjusted his grip on his bow as he heard the mechanic roar of a quad bike start up, the crunch of tyres on the track.  A shadow flew by his hiding place in a roar of motor and exhaust stink, the sound dopplering as it accelerated away.  John counted down in his head until he heard the sound of boots, loud on the undergrowth.  He stood, five seconds after he heard the man pass, drew his bow and let his arrow fly.

He was getting very good at putting arrows into his target.  John nocked another arrow and watched for a few seconds, but it was a clean shot.  Shouldering his bow, he stepped forward to finish the job.

A few minutes later, John checked to make sure the evidence he was ever here was covered by fallen branches before he jogged over to the track. Scuffing up the drag marks with his boot, he nodded and stepped out of the shade of the trees onto the track proper.  It took only a second to find the trail left by the quad bike.

John had taken a water bottle, among a few other things, off the body.  He took a second to swig a mouthful, trying to wash the taste of dust off his tongue, before he started jogging along the trail.

The bike had mown down a tall stand of grass where it had veered off the track.  John stayed in the grass, weaving like a snake to leave no sign of his own passing.  The storeroom was little more than a ramshackle lean-to, all weathered boards and unglazed windows.  He could hear two voices, the sound of movement.

It was small enough that John doubted there was anyone else in there.

“Yeah, yeah,” a voice called out as boots thumped onto the hard-packed dirt.  “Just let me strap this down.”  John waited until the youth was bent over the bike, fiddling with the straps, before he darted forward on silent feet.

John used the knife for the coup de grace for rabbits who had moved too fast for a clean kill but not fast enough to avoid the arrow.  John stepped up behind the youth, grabbed his hair, and swiped hard enough that he felt the tip of the knife catch against bone.

He stared at the lump at his feet for a moment, then glanced at his sticky, red fingers.  Dropping the knife on the ground, John pulled an arrow from his quiver.  He stood behind the bike, arrow drawn and ready, pointed through the doorway.

She was looking behind her, the way everyone did as they checked to see if they had everything before they left.  John couldn’t see her eyes.  It made it easier to release the arrow.

There was a creek, just beyond the storeroom, a tiny tributary that John could straddle easily with a boot on either side.  He scrubbed at his hands, then rinsed his knife clean.  The taste of bile in his throat was harder to shift, despite him swilling and spitting out several mouthfuls of cool water.  He accepted it, as he had accepted every other shitty thing that had happened to him since the end of the world, and went back up the bank to finish the job.

The storeroom had rope, medikits, cans of food.  John took whatever he could cram into his pack before stepping back outside.  The sun was fully up now, a glow behind the clouds, and the grasses were already regaining their posture, erasing the drag marks of John’s cleanup.

He considered the bike, but the noise had been distinctive, and it wasn’t big enough for all of them.  He took the keys out of the ignition and hurled them towards the creek.  One last check, and John headed for the treeline.

Scott looked up as John came over the embankment that ran parallel to the road.  “Hey, there you are, I was getting worried.  Good hunting?”

John shrugged.  “A few close calls.  But I did find an old shed, had a few cans.  That should tide us over until tomorrow.”

“A shed?  Occupied?”  John shrugged again, and Scott frowned.  “We should probably try to put a few more miles between us and here today, anyway.  Just to be safe.  Good work, John.”

John watched Scott walk quickly to catch up to where Kayo and Alan were taking a turn on point.  

In his ears, all he could hear was _tick, tick, tick._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> Gordon, John, smile, and your Apocalypse AU?

It wasn’t until South Carolina that Gordon saw John smile again.

It wasn’t a huge grin, just a fleeting flicker at the corner of John’s mouth as Gordon prattled about getting wet socks.  But it was an expression, something that had been noticeably absent with John ever since they entered that damn forest.

Gordon had made it his personal mission to make John smile, and he took that tiny flicker like a medal.

They were alone together; the others were already picking their way down the banks of the river, but John had hung back.  Gordon knew he wasn’t the only one to notice John always set himself a little apart, always picking a vantage point so he could watch his group’s progress.

He wondered if he was the only one to notice that John always watched with his bow in his hand.

Gordon pretended  _not_  to notice this time; instead, he kept his eyes on monstrocity of salvaged parts that connected the northern bank of the river with the south as his mouth ran on, chasing another fleeting smile.  “But I for one am glad to see the mad scientists wasted no time in getting their engineering freak on.”

“It’s certainly a contraption.”  John was always softly spoken, but now his voice was barely a whisper on the air.  “Next big storm will probably blow it away.  Lucky we got here in time.”

They’d all been watching the clouds build on the horizon.  But after the past few weeks, the exhaustion and the hunger, Gordon couldn’t seem to muster the appropriate concern for some wind and rain.

“Well,” he continued blithely.  “We’re - what?”

John’s relaxed pose had twitched, like his entire body had shifted its weight forward.  “Get down,” John hissed.  The bow in his hands was nocked, and Gordon’s eyes widened as he looked down the shaft to the target John had spotted on the opposite back.  A person, standing like a sentinel where the bridge met the far bank.

Down near the makeshift bridge, Scott had seen them too.  He called out something, but his words were whipped by the breeze.  Whatever the response was had Scott’s hands drifting towards his holster.

He froze as the far figure lifted a shotgun.

Gordon glanced at John, unsure what to do, and gasped.

John was smiling as he loosed the arrow.


End file.
